


The Beauty Of Moonlight

by Charlie9646



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU, Bisexual Severus Snape, Character Death, Dark, F/M, Former Luna/ Neville, HEA sort of, I swear he gets help, Kissing, Light serving Snape, M/M, Manipulative character on how they portray their version of events, Mental Illness, Mind Healer, Morally Grey Snape, Murder, PTSD, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sex, Vampire Severus Snape, Vampires, character not a good narrator, emotionally unstable characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2019-10-15
Packaged: 2020-12-16 17:07:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21039734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charlie9646/pseuds/Charlie9646
Summary: Luna Lovegood has always been rather odd, she is generally fearless in her own soft way. She's thoughtful and caring.After Neville’s death in an accident, however, she loses so much of herself she just stops trying. And then she starts seeing dark things just as she use to see things of the light.She always had a habit of bringing home creatures magical and muggle, but this one sure takes the cake.





	1. Hair Like Starlight

Luna stood on a dock in London, it was a cold and rainy night in October. She pulled her purple coat around herself tighter. Luna's heart told her that she was supposed to be here tonight. Not tomorrow night and not last night, tonight. Since she had seen her mother died when she was just a child, she had gotten these feelings, it was why people called her names and took her things. 

But, her feelings had always been correct, and now tonight of all nights was not the time to ignore them. Her very soul told her that. She heard him before she saw him. It was barely a sound, if it wasn't such a quiet night, she wouldn't have been able to hear it. The soft sound of leather boots hitting concrete. It didn't even sound like the man behind here was breathing. She did not move a muscle as he stalked forward like a cat. This is what she had been waiting for, this was why she was here of all places out in the cold.

Before he grabbed her shoulders he snarled like the beast he was not, ”run you, foolish girl!”

Luna does not do as he says, instead she says softly ”Severus, I am not afraid to die, death is like going to sleep. I saw my mother die just like you did, we have that in common seeing them die when we were children.”

His long cold fingers wrap around her neck, she shuts her eyes, preparing for the slice of fangs in her skin. She saw mother die, dying isn't all that bad. Instead, he spins her to face him. She can see him in the glow of the street lights. Severus Snape barely looked like the professor who had taught her potions. His skin is paler than it was last time, no one would believe that was possible, but it was. It was also less shallow, less of a sickly pallor to it. His hair was far longer than it had been when he was human. He looked far younger, his nose was still large though it no longer looked as if it had been broken several times, but the strangest thing about him was his eyes. 

They were still black, but they were like that of a cat. These eyes were made to see at night, not during the day. 

His thumb rested on her chin, ”How in Merlin’s name do you know about my mother, and why aren't you screaming, why aren't you pleading with me to let you go?” 

She looked him in the eye and said rather softly ”because Severus I know about your mother because she had been friends with my father long ago, and you don't want to kill me anymore than I want to kill you.”

Severus still wasn't breathing, his chest not rising and falling under his black shirt. He seemed so desperately sad to her, more than he ever had when he taught at Hogwarts, his creator must have abandoned him. They surely didn't teach him how to live his second life. It seems that was her job, she was the one who would have to teach Severus Snape how to live again. 

Luna said to him with her hand resting on his arm, ”come back with me to my cottage Severus, I have blackout curtains, and you will not be alone any longer. I understand it seems more about what you are than you do.”

Snape looks like a dog who's been kicked too many times and starts to strike out at even a kind hand. He narrowed his eyes and growled, ”I don't need your help, Looney! At least I am not the one trying to bring home a vampire with me.”

Luna thought to herself well it seems the books were true, vampires not only looked younger than the age that they were when they were changed, but also they were mentally taken back to a younger age. Snape sounded like a teenager. She said to him as she started to walk back to her home, ”Severus I have a way that you don't have to hurt someone and not go hungry.''

Severus made a shocked noise and followed her. She smiled at the sound of his boots on the ground. The woman with the moonlight colored hair and a willingness to see the good in anything was followed back to her apartment by a vampire with midnight colored hair, whose emotions and body was that of a teenager, but his mind was far older. They were quite an odd pair.

***********************

Luna sat the cup of the mixture of blood replenishing potion, animal blood, and her own blood in front of Severus. His hands shook ever so slightly with worry or better yet anticipation. He thumbed at the handle of the mug. She sat next to him, he was nearly a foot taller than her, his long limbs dwarfing hers. She said in nearly a whisper to hopefully not upset him, ”Severus it's okay to drink, no matter what you do, you will not scare me.” 

She did it without thought placing her hand on his knee and said:” your safe here, I will not hurt you”.

A soft whine left the back of his throat, and then Severus placed the cup to his lips. Fangs extended, his eyes became even more cat-like, Once he started he could not stop it tasted better than anything had in his past life, though he barely remembered his past life. It was like looking at too faded photographs he sort of knew what had happened, but could not give much detail.

He remembered being changed most of all. The flame-like feeling racking through his body, the pain, and then what the monster had done to him on top of it. The man had violated him. He didn’t know which hurt worse, being changed or that. 

Severus finished the glass with Luna’s hand still on his knee. He should not let her do that, he should run away from here. But he could not bear to. This beautiful woman was not scared of him. She was eighteen now? Just barely. He had been living off animals mostly rats for years, he didn't even know how long it truly had been. For all, he knew she could be thirty and he had been living like a terrified animal for over a decade. 

He sat the mug down and shut his eyes. His very bones no longer hurt, his skin did not hurt with the slight brush of wind against it. The wonder of actually getting what you need he thought. Neither of them said anything to the other. Severus rested his face in his hands and sighed. 

Luna asked him in her gentle voice as she tucked his long hair behind his ears on the side closest to her “feel better now?” His skin was like ice against her fingers, it was smooth and hard. His hair was like fine silk. He leaned into her touch. Her fingers against the skin behind his ear. She whispers ever so softly into his ear “I bet you miss being hugged, Severus, I think I ever so you hugged”.

He jumps up like her words were vipers, in his heavy drawl he says, “don’t pretend like you care about my feelings Ms. Lovegood, surely you're going to fire call Mr. Potter as soon as you get a chance and have me taken to Azkaban, or better yet put down like the monster I am. It does neither of us any good to pretend like that is not what would best for the world.”

”I am not calling anyone Severus Snape. And even if I did you would not go to Azkaban or would you be murdered, everyone knows what you did to protect us. Harry told them about your memories. Hermione worked since she graduated from Hogwarts to help all creatures” said Luna as she walked towards him slowly. 

He still was jumpy, like a feral cat. But, Luna had been taming dangerous creatures since she could walk. Magical and Muggle. And the difference is this one had a human soul, even if he would deny it. 

He hissed ”Ms. Granger needs to learn to keep her nose out of things that do not concern her, as does Potter, he should have used those memories to keep himself safe, do his duty and then kept them to himself.” 

”Even if it means now you can have a life?” she asked.

He muttered more to himself than to her ”I would have been better to have never been born, and the world be a better place if I would have died that night in the shack. I served my purpose, and now I am just a dead creature without a soul.”

”Surely you don't believe that? You have never killed a person you would have killed me tonight if you have” she asks him. 

He turns around to face her so quickly she cannot see him do. Severus hisses at her ”I mean every single word, Luna, I don't understand why you of all people don't understand that!”

Luna says to him, her pale hand flat on his chest ”all I see is a man who made some bad choices and tried to make them right.”

He turns his head to the ceiling and sighed, ” I am just a freak of nature who shouldn't exist. The thing mothers tell their children scary stories to keep them in bed at night”.

She hugs him, she doesn't care that he tries to pull away before he gives in. Luna rests her head on his chest and says ”your not a monster Severus, your a person. Neither a Sinner or Saint. Just a person who's been through things that cause a typical person to lose their mind.”

Severus pulls away from her and sits with his back against the wall. He looks up at Luna, she is no longer wearing her purple coat. Now just a soft worn pale blue sweater, and jeans. Her socks are pink with yellow dots. At least they don't have fruit on them. She use to wear things with fruit on them like that when she was at Hogwarts. It feels like a lifetime ago seeing her outside of his potion’s classroom, in a pair of red and yellow striped socks with no shoes, and bottle caps for earrings. 

She rambled on about things like Nargles, Nifflers, and Wrackspurts. Her papers while they had those things in them, they always answered the questions he asked for, always so thoughtful. Why did such a kind gentle soul want anything to do with a thing that was more beast than man? Why on earth would she care about him? 

And it surely had nothing to do with the fact that her father had been friends with his mother. His mother had called the man insane, the only times she spoke of Lovegood. She called him quite kind. Finding her crying on the steps the day she got the letter her mother had died. 

The day she learned she would have to live with her father alone if she went back to the manor she had grown up in. With only house-elves and the man who saw his daughter no different than a prized horse or dog. 

That was why Eileen Prince married Tobias Snape because she hoped he was better than the monster that happened to be her own flesh and blood. He was not. They say daughters tend to marry their fathers, in Eileen’s case that was surely true. They also said something else, that he thought was hogwash. Sons tend to want to be with women like their mothers. He at least had no interest in a terrified meek woman like his mother, but then again he never truly knew who she actually now did he?

Through the sliver of the curtain, he can see that the sun was starting to rise. He needed to stay out of the light. He knew he would end up hiding from it like some deranged cat if he tried to set out in it. Severus Snape’s mind may want to die, but his instinct would not allow him to, the thing that controlled him now. 

All of his life Severus tried and was mostly successful to keep control of himself. He remembered unlike everything else the times he failed with true clarity. The day he broke the branch over Petunia’s head, nearly losing Lily before he even really knew her, the time he blew out a window with his accidental magic he was hiding from Tobias and he had nowhere to go. Doing so had only led to a worse beating, he had been six at the time. What had he done that was so wrong? Used magic to bring a toy ball to his hand that had somehow gotten stuck under a fence.

The next was when he called Lily that name, that name that was so horrible she would never speak to him again. And it was his fault. His anger, his loose tongue that caused it. The day he found Lily’s dead body. It only haunted him to hold her one last time. 

When he showed Dumbledore as the man gave him orders that would damn him to hell if he ever were to die. 

When he killed Dumbledore. 

When he told Potter to not call him a coward.

When he gave Potter his memories.

But most of all when his accidentally magic killed his mother. He didn’t actually kill her himself. He was sixteen, he shouldn’t have been having accidental magic. That was a childish thing, he was not a child at that time. His father was going after them, they were hiding in his bedroom, he had already gone after them once that day, and then he left to get drunk that evening. The liquor had not helped the man’s mood. It had only made it worse. Far worse. 

Severus had been so desperate to the man who had sired him from getting to them. So utterly desperate. He didn't mean to, it wasn't what he had wanted. He just wanted Tobias to go away. To leave them alone! Why couldn't the man just leave them alone? He cheated on his wife regularly, he beat her, sometimes he even made her watch him cheat on her. Why couldn't the man just let them leave and move to a wizarding village where they could be happy? 

Without even realizing it, Severus set the door on fire, he created a wall of fire. The door was left intact, the flames did not spread, but Tobias could not stop it. He could not get through. He could not hurt them. Mother realized what he could not realize, Tobias was trapped outside of their little safe haven, but they were trapped in it. 

She didn't remove the magic right away. She tucked her son, who argued with her he was no longer a baby, he didn't need his mother to tuck him in bed. But she once insisted, she for once in her life forced an issue. He was asleep when she removed the magic when she went out to face the monster she had married, but woke when Tobias came into the room, not even a sleeping draught was strong enough to keep him asleep through that. But it took him back under once the house was quiet. Maybe she knew something like what happened was going to happen and she wanted to keep him safe.

Tobias came barreling into the room once the magic was removed. Once the wall of fire was gone. He dragged her out of the room and then threw her small tiny frame down the flight of stairs like a rag doll. Tobias acted as if Severus wasn't even there, as if he didn't even exist. He left after he had killed his wife. 

Hours later in the early morning light her son found her, Eileen Prince Snape, dead as a doornail laying eyes wide open at the landing of the stairs. There was nothing he could have done to save her. And helping her would have only gotten him killed. 

Lily wasn't speaking to him anymore, he had tried to visit her house earlier in the summer, and she told her parents not to let him in. Her father had threatened him with calling the police when he came back a second time, they always hated him. They had been trying to convince Lily for years not to be friends with him. He was just a dirty, underfed, nasty little boy from Spinner's End, his father was a drunk, and there was a rumor that his mother did drugs. Lily didn't need to be friends with one of those people.

So Severus owled the only person he believed he could trust, the only person who really cared about him besides his mother, Lucius Malfoy. 

***********************

Luna snapped him out of his rambling thoughts. He was staring blankly at the wall. The wall that her had a painting on it, photos of her family and friends. “Severus” she whispered. “Whatever your thinking about it is the past.” His body shakes under her hand. 

He says to no one, not even really himself, but surely not to her. Just the ghosts of the past. “I should of protected her. He killed her because of me.”

Luna takes his hand into hers and pulls him up into a standing position. Leading him, the man lost in his own mind to her bedroom. She says to him “Sev, can I call you Sev?” He nods. “Sev, you didn’t kill your mother and you didn’t kill Lily either. Your father killed your mother, and he who must not be named killed Lily Potter.” 

She gets him to sit on her bed. And as if he was jolted with a crucio curse. She throws a pair of sweats and shirt that at one point belonged to Neville at him. Before, no she wasn’t going to think about that. What happened, happened and there was nothing she could do about it. Severus’s long fingers brushed against the worn material of them. He seemed slightly uncomfortable with the gesture, but when she motioned in the direction of the bathroom he went to go change. But stopped for a second and turned to her, ”may I use your shower? It's been months since I had one.”

Luna was shocked by that statement, Severus didn't smell, his hair was slightly tangled and he seemed to have a few leaves and sticks in it, but he did not smell, and his was not greasy. ”Yes, you can,” she said. ”and what is mine is yours to use.”

Luna heard the shower turn on after the door was shut. She sat on her bed for a second the bed she had once shared with Neville, the bed with the silver moon and stars comforter that reminded her of the ceiling at Hogwarts. She loved those stars and moons. Sometime shortly after his death, Luna seemed to just lose a part of who she was, she no longer saw fairies, wood sprites, Nargles and the Nifflers no one else bothered to look at. 

The things she saw were far darker, between the war, and Nevile dying in an attack that was senseless even to her father, the mind Healer Hermione and Ginny forced her to see, they claimed she had a ”mental breakdown” whatever that meant. 

All she knew was that she was once drawn to happy things and protecting them, and showing them to others, but now all she saw was what witches and wizards considered dark. The vampire stalking the streets, the werewolf howling at the moon, the mermaids in the lake, the demons and the monsters of the night. She wanted to help them as she had helped the creatures of the light, but she could not. Until she started to see her old professor, he looked so different than he had when she was taught by him, but he wasn't evil. He didn't want to hurt anyone, and by watching him for months Luna realized she could be a little bit of herself again and help him. 

That's what led her to the docks tonight after she had read all that she could on vampires. They couldn't go out in the sun, but she couldn't sleep at night herself anymore. The nightmares not allowing her to. The need to drink human blood, she found a potion that allowed a human to be a ”blood donor” only a small amount and mixing it with other potions to make the blood stretch, she found out physically went back at least their looks and their maturity level to the time that they were once happy. For Severus, he lost it seemed the ability to be happy when his mother was murdered. Long before the death of Lily Potter, his soul was scarred. 

She did not have a plan of where they would go from here. Who she would tell if she ever told anyone about him, not that anyone should care he was deemed a hero of the wizarding world. But, who's to say he wanted anyone to know?

The other problem was she was drawn to him. In a way, no words could explain it. She had not felt this about anyone since she felt she needed to tell Harry about the diadem. Whatever made Luna Lovegood different from everyone else she had ever encountered wanted her to help Severus Snape in the way the person who had changed him did not. She was going to teach him how to live his new life, and maybe find herself again as well.

**********************

Severus didn't feel right sleeping with his former student in her bed. He didn't feel right kicking her out of her bed either. But the black curtains covered less in the living room, he couldn't safely fall asleep there and his body knew it. It wouldn't allow him to. He could sleep on the floor, and had offered to. 

All Luna had said that was so uncharacteristic of the girl he knew ”no, you will sleep in bed with me, stop acting like a child.”

He laid down on the right side of it, on his side at the edge, to the point he may as well not even been in the bed. Severus said to Luna ”I am sorry I kept you up all night.”

She laughs and it's rather broken, ”I haven't slept at night since the night I found out that Neville died.” She wonders if he will ask how or when, but this man is not a Gryffindor or Hufflepuff, he's not a fellow Ravenclaw or even like Hermione Granger who would suggest a mind healer, he's a Slytherin, to his very core.

She expects nothing, but he shocks her and says ”I am sorry that he's gone.” He shuts his eyes and tries to sleep, but just before the comfort of a bed, something he's not experienced in months overtakes him, he hears her whisper so softly without his enhanced hearing he would not of heard her ”me too, Sev.”

***********************

Luna wakes from her nightmare, blackness and Bellatrix screams to Severus muttering ”wake up I think someone is here.” Three people have keys to her home. One is dead, one is her father, and the other is Hermione. She puts on her lavender-colored dressing gown and says to him ”stay here and stay quiet”.

He even stops breathing, acts like he's made of the stone he looks as if he was carved from. She brushes her fingers against the back of his hand before she goes to face her unexpected visitor. Hermione likely, she's the one who fears she will find Luna dead one day, her father understands what it's like to lose someone you love and how it can overtake you. 

He rarely ever visits her anymore, understanding that she's not going to wake up one morning and be fine. True is though before waking up in the morning she would have to go to sleep the night before. Hermione, on the other hand, thinks the edge of the sword she rest on will tip one way or the other. She will get better or she will kill herself. 

Luna doesn't think she will get better, and she doesn't have a desire to kill herself. She leaves her bedroom and shuts the door softly behind her. Time to face the music of one Hermione's ”just checking up on you visits”. Luna is happy her friend cares about her but wishes the other woman would stop trying to fix her, there is no way to fix something that's shattered into a million pieces. 

The woman with the wild brown curls is at Luna’s stove making lunch or dinner. Either way, it's long past noon, though it still feels as if she hasn't gotten even a wink of restful sleep. She says softly to the other girl, ”hello Hermione, nice to see you.” instead of the ”please just leave me be in my misery, and don't go snooping around like you always do”.

Hermione says ”hello Luna, just thought I would drop by, but when I saw you had yet to wake up I thought I would make lunch for us.” It was simple, sandwiches and chips, the other girl wasn't that great of a cook. Luna had no room to talk though, she barely ate much, and when she did, it was either take out or similar to what Hermione was making. Luna would likely had crisps, not chips. 

Luna dug out her loose tea it was the only thing she regularly made. She put the kettle on and sat on a chair at her small rickety kitchen table. She wondered if she should invite Severus to join them, he could eat, but it did nothing for him besides taste. The question was though would he want Hermione to know he was alive? Would he want anyone from the magical world to know he was alive? 

That was a question she would have to ask him once Hermione had left. After she made her feel that she was the same as she was every time the girl came over, and that she was doing okay. Hermione poured the tea into cups, plated food and sat it down on the table. 

Hermione’s eyes went wide as she stared at Severus’s boots by the chair he had sat in a short a time last night. ”Whose boots are those? We got rid of all of Neville’s things, and they are far too big to be yours.”

Luna said nothing and kept her eyes downcast. 

Hermione slammed her hand on the table, ”whose are those Luna? I worry for you, your not in the right mental place to have a relationship.”

Luna said,”I need to ask him before I tell you.”

”He’s still here isn't he?” said Hermione, as she walked to Luna’s bedroom. She harshly opened the door, Luna was hot on her heels. She was terrified of how shocked Hermione would be, and how upset Severus would be. Hermione let a squeak, ”who are you? Wait no you look a little bit like Professor Snape, but he had no family”.

Luna pushed Hermione aside lightly. She made her way to Severus and said softly ”I didn't mean for her to find out, don't go Sev, I can help you, just let me, please.”

He reached for her hand and said ”I couldn't hide forever, and you have a right to have people around. I should have guessed something like this would happen. But, at least it was someone who isn't prone to cursing first and asking questions later.”

Severus looks up at Hermione and announces ”Ms. Granger, it is a rather long and convoluted story, but I am Severus Snape. Ms. Lovegood just was kind of enough to let me stay with her.”

Hermione looks paler than Severus, like she's looking at a dead man. In a way, she kind of is. She asks him bluntly ”how?”

Severus says in his drawl that once got the attention of his students, made them fear and sometimes even respect him ”a vampire Ms. Granger, he found me in the Shrieking Shack, where you left me to die. I was nearly dead, but that only made it easier to change me. Going to prove you're not so accepting of monsters, beasts and things that go bump in the night? When it's your friend who took one in? No one would blame you.” He stared up at her but she still felt like he was staring down his nose at her. ”Not even I would blame you, Ms. Granger, and it would put me out of my misery.”

Luna stared at Hermione, her blue eyes broken and sad ”he’s never fed on anyone, Hermione. He doesn't want to be a monster. Let me help him.”

Hermione shut her brown eyes and said ”Professor Snape, I have made it my life’s work to protect all creatures that the ministry treats horribly. You and those like you have rights now, because of the work myself and others have done, but if you hurt Luna you will have to deal with me. She's been through hell. And I guess we now know the last time you were happy, about sixteen I assume?”

She then turned to Luna and asked ”you gave him the potion, didn't you? That's why you were researching things like it.”

Luna said ”yes, but I didn't run into him till last night, I just had a feeling I needed to know that information. Like the fact I should tell Harry about the grey lady.”

Severus raised his eyebrows with shock, ”what is in the potion, Luna because I am not hungry at the moment and I haven't been since I woke up.” Neither of the women’s blood called to him he could breathe and not want to rip their throats out. It was both wonderful and frightening. He didn't feel as if his throat was on fire. He was not scared of what he was going to do to either of them. Whatever it was it was a wonder drug to him. There had to be a catch. Severus had never been one to believe good things just happened, at least not to people like him.

Hermione answered for Luna, ”Professor Snape”...

He snarled ”I am no one's professor Ms.Granger”.

She said, ”And I am no longer Ms. Granger, I married Ron a year ago.”

Severus choked out ”and yet he's not got you barefoot and pregnant cooking for him every waking moment?”

Hermione groans ”I hated teenagers when I was one, and I swear you're one of the worst. Do you want to answer what your wondering or should I leave you to wonder?”

Severus said,” just get on with it.”

Hermione said softly ”a bit of her blood, blood replenishing potion, something to help fill you, and a painkiller. Don't worry it's not enough to hurt her if she followed the instructions correctly”. She raised her eyebrows at Luna as if to question her.

Luna said, ” of course I did, and I hope you're not mad at me.”

He says to her ”I am grateful that you gave it to me, you don't have to continue, but I wish you would have told me what goes into it when you gave it to me.” Severus did not truly say what he thought he was not happy with her to take his consent away from him, to do something for his greater good, but not allow him to decide for himself, but she was trying to help him. She didn't ask him to kill anyone, spy on anyone, harm anyone, she fed him, and gave him some of his mind back. Shouldn't he be grateful for that?

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


  
  
  
  
  
  
  


  
  
  


  



	2. When A Grave Is Empty

Severus stared at the glass of blood mixture in front of him. The smell turned off the intelligent part of his brain, mostly. He wanted to pour it on his hands so he could lick it up faster, He wanted to suck it down like it was the best wine he ever drank, but this glorious thing was far better than wine. It was far better than whiskey, it was far better than a cigarette, it was far better than pizza at the Evan’s after not having eaten for three days, that day being Lily’s tenth birthday party. He wanted this far more than he had even wanted Lily herself. 

He reaches for the cup his hand shaking as he does so. He's trying desperately not to take a breath. If he doesn't breathe he can control himself. But, he needs it and Luna made it of her own free will. He wraps his hand around it and tries to act the human he wishes he still was and not the monster he's become. As he drinks it he can feel his fangs under his tongue, he knows he must look like a monster, but Luna acts if it's normal for a house guest to drink blood, and have fangs. 

  
  


As if it's normal to have a monster sitting on your floral couch. Maybe she hopes he will snap and drain her dry. Maybe she wants to die like he did for sixteen years. For a sliver of a second, he thinks about doing just that. She could no longer suffer and they would put him to death, both their sufferings would be over. 

  
  


And yet with the small bit of her lifeblood in him and the potions, those thoughts stop. Luna doesn't want to die, she wants to help him, drinking her dry would kill her, and he's never really wanted to kill anyone, besides maybe Sirius Black and he deserved it. 

  
  


They were trying to figure out how long he could without wanting to drain her dry, and the answer was two days, roughly. She did not judge him over his thoughts because as she put it, ”it was just his nature, and with a clear head he didn't want to do it, so he didn't want to do it.” 

Severus wished he could be more like Luna. Even just a tiny bit. In the few weeks he had learned she was one of the most wonderful woman he had ever met. Her kind heart, her gentle soul, her lack of judgment and her desire to help him. And that is exactly what made him want to run from her, to never see her again. He was the demon dragging down the angel. He was the beast who wanted to be with the human. At least Remus Lupin was only a monster on the full moon, Severus was one every second of every day. 

He barely remembers his comments to Tonks about her Patronus, but he is far worse than Lupin ever was. But, like Lupin he was a monster who wanted to be with the human woman. He could not help but touch himself in the shower to thoughts of her. His mind was mostly far older, but his body was that of a teenager. The laws said that vampires were considered the age they were changed. That was not made so someone like Severus could legally consent, it was made to protect vampires from changing children and saying well she's been around for twenty years so she's no longer a child. Magical or muggle creeps existed everywhere.

  
  


Severus Snape for the rest of his life would look and possibly even sometimes act seventeen at best sixteen at worst. No good would come of being with Luna Lovegood he would only set her up to be an outcast of the magical and muggle world, but the worst was what it would do to him, he would have to watch the woman he loved grow old and die as he stayed unchanging. For a decade or two people would understand they were together, and then they would ask if she was his mother, then his grandmother and then she would be dead, no good would come out of a relationship with Luna Lovegood and himself. He could change her, but then he would steal her humanity just as the monster had stolen his. Severus would never do that to her. Not ever. 

Even if it meant just as he had done with Lily watching her marry someone else. Not that Luna left her house enough to meet anyone else let alone marry someone.

Severus had only left the house with Luna, and that was only to do her grocery shopping at a twenty-four-hour store. Hermione had not told anyone about them, though she regularly came over to cook for Luna and check on both of them, and she always had books for Severus. She had also gotten him clothing that actually fit him, and apologized for it not being his things, which had long since been donated, the little he had not tried to take with him and lost along the way for the three years he had been living quite similar to a stray dog. It’s not like they fit him any better than the few things Luna had kept of Neville’s regardless, his old clothing that is. 

So now he wore darkly colored (though not all black much to his dismay) button-down shirts, long-sleeved shirts, soft jumpers, jeans, trousers. He thought it was quite uncomfortable to have Granger of all people ask him what type of underwear he preferred, but he had experienced far worse things than someone wanting the things he actually liked to be what they got him. 

He was content here in this house, with this woman, in her bed, and the quiet sweet company she was. He wondered how she paid her bills and then he found one night that she wrote articles for her father’s magazine. After the war, the Quibbler had become even more popular. 

Severus realized he had zoned out and was sitting there in the quiet of the night. He asked Luna ”would you like to go for a walk with me?”

Luna nodded and started to put on her coat and boots. Getting out of the house would do them both some good. No one but Hermione seemed to visit and Luna never went out to visit anyone else. She really didn't talk about her friends, she did, however, tell him that Potter had decided to name his youngest child as of yet Albus Severus Potter. It made him wanted to bang his head against the wall, but that was only to likely break the wall. 

The stupid man was immortalizing Severus’s worst actions with his son’s name. Beyond that Tobias had regularly called Severus a sissy name, for a little sissy boy. Even though it was the name of at least one Roman Emperor. Not that Tobias knew that, or cared to. The man had been far more stray dog than a person. 

But, telling the man that so he might change the poor baby's name, first meant that Severus would have to let the man know he was alive. Which had its own set of issues. He might end up burned at the stake as a monster or he might end up in Azkaban. It was far easier to give a dead man an order of Merlin than to face the fact the man who helped bring down the dark lord was a death eater, killer of Dumbledore and a vampire to boot.

So, it was best that for now at least that Severus Tobias Snape stayed dead. Even if meant that Hermione Weasley might have to lie to her husband and best friend. It's not like Luna herself was around anyone to lie to, and she was the only one who truly could confirm he was Severus Snape since the young Mrs. Weasley avoided asking the hard questions, that Luna had not shied away from.

Severus put on his boots and they together hand in hand walked out into the cold. He didn't feel it, he no longer got cold, but Luna shivered. He tried to let go of her small hand so she could shove it in her pocket, but she just clutched harder when he tried. It seems they needed one another to face the outside world. 

  
  


He was stupidly okay with that. And he knew he should not be. But he was Severus liked to be needed. He had always needed someone as well. They were an odd pair as they walked through the snow to the park near Luna’s home. What had become his home as well. The park was empty when they reached it, it was after all three in the morning. Severus looked up at the full moon, they were in London, no need to worry about werewolves here. 

The moon to him was just as beautiful as the woman standing next to him. Luna meant moon in Latin, but her hair was the color starlight, her eyes reminded him of the tiny bits of blue of a sunrise. Her skin as pale as the snow under their feet unless she was blushing, that it is. When she did so, her skin became a soft pink. 

At that moment he realized he was in love with Luna Lovegood, as surely as he had ever been of anything before. He needed to tell her about that night, the night he was changed. What the monster had done to him. The man who had once meant so much to him. The man he had thought he could trust. The man who made him into this fiend, and then just used him like he was a toy to use for sexual pleasure and throw away. 

Maybe the only reason he changed Severus was because he couldn't be attracted to what he used to look like. Maybe the man left him there expecting he wouldn't survive the change fully. He knew one of the main reasons this had never happened to him before while he was young, a young and stupid death eater was because he was not good looking he was not handsome. He was something that no one wanted to kiss let alone fuck. Severus wished he wouldn't have changed during the change and then the monster of a man wouldn't have done those things to him.

Even if Luna wanted to be with him, even if she could look past what he was, he didn't know if he could ever do that with her. He was at the time of his change had only ever been with one person, he was a man, and Severus had loved him dearly. They had never gotten to actual sex. Regulus like odd pureblood he was, was saving himself for marriage. And then man did what he had done trying to stop the dark lord and was killed. So that night as much as Severus hated to admit it, he had been a virgin. So people would claim he still was one, because you have to choose to have sex for it to count. 

Which made him feel better and worse. Better than he had not waited so to give it to the man who had functionally stolen his soul, but horrible because it meant he was still a man who was a virgin at his age. That he had never chosen to have sex. That he was, he could barely process how old, time didn't mean much to him anymore, and all he had ever done was oral sex and handjobs, but most of all that because of what happened to him he might not ever be able to have sex. With anyone man or woman.

He had been bisexual since well his whole life and was still attracted to both sexes. His rape had not changed that. He still could get hard thinking about the time he saw Remus Lupin in the prefect bathroom. It had nothing to do with being a vampire that he worried he would never be able to be a proper partner to anyone. He doesn't know if he could tolerate another person touching him, that way, he worries if he can't that he would just be leading Luna on and worries he would just be setting her up for more heartbreak. After what she had been through he didn't feel it was his place to lead her on just to panic when they got to touch each other more than kisses. 

Luna snapped him out of his thoughts by throwing a snowball at his chest. He was shocked at first. Why would she? And then he looked over at her smiling and she said to him, ”Severus come on when was the last time you had done something just for the fun of it?” 

He did not tell her, but the last time he had done anything remotely fun was before Regulus had been killed. They had made out in a rowboat like the teenagers they were on a pond. Instead, he packed together a snowball and threw it at her, even as a vampire his aim as always was slightly off. But, at least this time unlike when he had played with Lily as a child, he actually hit her. Though it was in her shoulder. 

”Nice shot” she giggled with sincerity. 

Luna walked over to him, her eyes taking him in. Her blonde hair bright in the moonlight. She was the beauty of moonlight, she stood up on her tippy toes in front of him, threw her arms around him, and kissed him. It felt utterly wonderful her lips on his. But why was she holding him so tightly? Why was she yanking on hair just the way that monster did? He was not frightened by being kissed. There was nothing wrong with him, at least in that way. 

And he could not bring himself to touch her, for fear it would entice her to go further. And at this very moment, he was rather close to jumping out of his own skin. When the kiss ended Luna said to him ”its okay Severus, we can go as slow as you need to. And shouldn't have assumed you would be ready for that. ”

He asked her ”why would I need to go slow? And why wouldn't I be ready for a simple kiss?” He loved kissing her, but he didn't think he could have gone much further without panicking. 

She says to him with her eyes shut, ”sometimes, Severus you say things in your sleep like don't touch me, that hurts, please stop you're hurting me. I haven't brought it up because I know you will tell me when you're ready. I don't want to even begin to guess what happened you Severus, but when you are ready to tell me I am here.”

Severus thought to himself as he looked down at her he did not deserve to call Luna Lovegood friend let alone anything else. She was just too perfect. He knew he should tell her it all, but all he could bring himself to say is ”the man who changed me, did stuff to me…”

  
  


Luna just hugs him and says ”it’s okay Severus when you are ready? Then we will talk about it. For now, know that I love you and that's enough. Even if we never even can kiss.”

He was nervous and worried if he would panic again, but he was so desperate to, he was a man God Dammit, he was not a sissy or some poor maiden, and he wanted to kiss her. Baby steps he thought to himself, it was like making a potion you have to take it step by step. And he bent down and kissed her. A quick peck on the lips, but it was the most wonderful kiss he had ever had in his life. 

They walked back to their home hand in hand. Where they would share a bed together and he would wonder if dreamless sleep potion worked on vampires because Luna shouldn't have to experience his pain, if he could not save himself from it, he would at least try to save her from it. 

**********************

Hermione visited after dark this time, Luna was after much pressure from both of them visiting her father. The witch had gotten him more books to read and was taking his finished ones back with her.

She sat down her teacup on the table in front of her. She gazed at him with knowing eyes and said ”Severus, Luna has been through hell. And if you are leading her on then you will have me to deal with. She's one of my closest friends, and after Neville died she just stopped trying to live. She gave up, and now your here and after six months of trying she's finally going to visit her father. The thing is though Severus? If you just off and disappear? It's going to be a million times worse than last time. It's going to shatter her into a million little pieces. And I don't know if I will be able to put them back together again.”

He looked down at his long fingers, and said ”do realize I am just as broken as she is right? Just as damaged. Just as incapable of basic things? What that monster did to me, I will never be the same again. Luna accepts me as I am. She doesn't ask for any more than I can give. I would never hurt her. I could never hurt her. I love her more than my very life. The only way I would leave is if she asked me to.”

Hermione shook her head ”Severus you don’t have the best track record, and you still likely love Lily as you have done for decades, though that’s likely more obsession than anything. Beyond that you have mental health issues and I doubt you have ever gotten treatment for them. As much as I see good change in Luna from you. I wish you two would just stay friends.”

Severus wants to fling his own mug of tea at her head. Stupid, stupid, ignorant, little know it all. Instead he snarls at her “you don’t know anything about my relationship with Lily Evans! You think you do, but you don’t!”

Hermione asked bluntly, ”but Harry said you were in love with her…”

He laughed throwing his head back, not in a funny way like some fiend, like the monster he didn't want to be, ”I was her best friend and she was mine. We kissed once when we were about thirteen years old. You know your relationship with Potter right?” 

She nodded.

”It was like kissing my sister. My interest was far more into say Remus Lupin, Lucius Malfoy or Laurel Greengrass, ” he can't help but laugh at the shocked she makes.

  
  


”Are you gay or straight Severus?” asked Hermione.

He huffs, and can't help but think you little know it all assuming about something you clearly don't understand. ”I am neither, Mrs. Weasley, I am bisexual.”

She says, ”does that mean you're going to cheat on Luna?”

He narrowed his eyes at her, ”no I am monogamous in my relationships. So no just the same as you haven't slept with Draco Malfoy while married to Ron Weasley.”

She looks shocked and stutters ”I am not attracted to Malfoy!”

He raises an eyebrow at her, he doesn't believe her totally. He may not remember everything about his past, but he vaguely remembers looks that the muggleborn witch and pureblood wizard use to give each other. And the more time he spends around Hermione the more he remembers of his past directly related to her.

Severus says ”And I am not attracted to every witch or wizard I meet. And even if I was attracted to anyone else like you were attracted to Krum, do not deny it he took you to the Yule Ball, I would not want to ruin the relationship I have with Luna. I love her Hermione Weasley, more than I can ever put into words and more than you will ever understand. Being bisexual is no different than being heterosexual or homosexual it simply means I am capable of being attracted to either sex. Nothing more.”

Hermione asks him ”then why is your Patronus a doe?”

Severus says to her flatly ”because it is either related to who you are as a person and or if not that who you love the most. My mother was incapable of making one, and even if she was, she rarely used magic. Lily was my best friend, my first friend, like a sister to me. And when my depression was drowning me after Regulus’s death it went from that of a wolf to that of a doe. Who knows what it is now. It could be a rabbit, for instance, like Luna’s something else, the wolf it once was or even something else totally different. Our souls are not constant Mrs. Weasley they change as we live and experience things. Mine was at a standstill however after the death of Regulus and Lily.

  
  


Hermione said harshly ”would you please stop calling me Mrs. Weasley! ” 

Severus rolled his eyes at her and said ”why yes Hermione when you stop assuming I spent the last twenty years in love with a dead woman who married and had a child with someone else, and that because I am bisexual I just want to FUCK, everything on two legs. You can't have it both ways Granger, you can't have it both ways. Please tell me when you have made up your mind about what you really would like to talk about.”

Hermione asked him the real question on her mind and to Severus, it was far worse than picking at his past with Lily Evans and his bisexuality ”who changed you, Severus? Why did they leave you to fend for yourself when you were so young as a vampire? And did you want it to be done?”

He said to harshly ”I am not answering any of those questions, and I have every right not to.”

”Severus…”

”Don’t call me that!” he hissed. ”Don’t Severus me like we are somehow good friends! He's not a danger to society, he's not going to harm muggles or magic folk. He only did this to me because he wanted to remind me of my place.”

Hermione asked,”Severus I thought we had become sort of friends.”

He says ”well you were wrong!” Not unlike the young man he appears to be.

Hermione says ”was it because you betrayed the dark lord?”

He nods and says ”why do now call him the dark lord? Most people don't at least not those who are not dark.” For a second he fears that she's Bellatrix under Pollyjuice potion, or something else. Or someone like her.

Hermione laughs ”it is not because I am someone else Severus, stop looking like a frightened cat. Voldemort causes most people to be uncomfortable and he who must not be named is, um, rather stupid. And I rarely talk about that time with anyone, but Draco. Most don't care to think of it, let alone talk about it. So I picked up his odd habit. Beyond I was simply using the language you are most comfortable with. He who must not be named sounds like something kids would say on a playground. Or worse what someone would say about their least favorite professor.” Realizing in that moment he was most people’s least favorite professor. 

He raises an eyebrow at her statement. Constant Vigilance. And says ”so you have become friends with him?”

She says ”yes, we both are unspeakable's, and work together.”

His gut was right, but neither of the pair would ever likely admit it. Malfoys didn't marry, date or even cheat on their wives with muggleborns even in this day and age. 

Hermione says ”Snape, your dodging my questions with your own. Now spill. I will tell no one, not even Luna, but someone needs to know if he does it again. Next time he might go after Harry.”

Severus says ” it's not against the light, it's against me. He simply used the battle as a means to what he wanted to do. No one else should fear him.”

Hermione asks ”what did you that made him think he had a right to do this to you?”

Severus said ”as a teenager, I turned his advances down. And he was a man in his past life as a human and now as a vampire always gets what he wants.”

She whispers softly ”a Malfoy”.

He nods.

She says ”I know for a fact Lucius and Draco are both human, maybe a cousin?”

He says ”Abraxas, Lucius’s father.”

She says ”he is supposedly dead.”

He says ”he is, he's undead.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	3. The Ugliest Of Humans, Become The Most Beautiful Of Monsters

Severus laid down next to Luna. He had just gotten out of the shower and his hair had been towel dried. It was still ever so slightly damp. Luna did as she had been doing for weeks now. Her head laid down on his chest and she said softly, “I love you, Severus.”

“And I, you,” he says to her.

They hadn’t gone farther than touching over clothes and kissing. Severus was the one holding back, and Luna respected that. She didn’t ask why he didn’t want to go any further, and she respected that he didn’t want to say what the problem was. The truth was she had a feeling of what the reason was, and she had no right to push him on it to tell her. 

That didn't mean Luna and Severus were going to hold back from kissing, he kissed her forehead, then on her nose, and then on her lips. She opened her mouth to him with this ease of comfort in his touch. His one hand rested on her hip, her fingers tangled in his long slightly damp hair. 

His skin felt like ice, she did not know if her shivers were from sheer pleasure of kissing him or the coolness of his skin. She could feel his hardness against her. She wanted to touch it, to bring him pleasure, but tonight was not the night. She could see in his black eyes that he was not ready for that, no matter how much he desired to go further. 

It was not lacking desire with Severus. He desired Luna more than anything he ever had in his life. He was left with only his imagination of what it could feel like. They were their bedclothes. When it became too much for him to take without him trying to push aside the worry he felt, he bolted to the loo. To touch himself, and try and settle down. Even his own hand left him ever so slightly uncomfortable, but it didn't leave him wanting to jump out of his own skin. 

He rested his forehead on the now cool tile of the shower. Severus wanted to put his fist through that wall. Then when he crawled back under the comforter Luna was fast asleep. Though her arm wrapped around his waist and her head nested on his cool chest. He kissed her hair and went to sleep. For now and possibly forever this was enough. He didn't dare think about the fact that they didn't have forever together, she would grow old with each passing day and he would stay forever unchanged. 

*********************

Severus had decided he was willing to let a few people besides Hermione know he was alive. Potter, Minerva and so on. Those he knew could be trusted. He felt weird at the idea someone with the last name of Potter was on his shortlist of trusted people, but Harry was not anymore James than Severus was Tobias. 

It was Christmas Eve, and for once Luna wanted to do something. She wanted to be around people. And that was a large reason why he was giving in about telling others. She as much as she wanted to go refused unless he joined her. If it was anyone but Luna, Severus would excuse them of manipulating him, she, however, was not the type to do such a thing. She just did not want to spend Christmas Eve without him, even if she wanted to spend it with her friends. 

So by definition of what his former classmates would have said, Severus must be totally utterly Luna Lovegood, but the truth was he was. That is what led the former dungeon bat of Slytherin to be standing Harry Potter’s doorway with a wand to the face by one Ronald Weasley. 

The man snarled ”what and who are you?”

.

Severus laughed, he surely didn't look that different. Or maybe his students had just seen what they wanted to see. He remembered once hearing a girl suggest be was in his forties, at the time he was only twenty-four. Poor eating habits, the more likely the habit of not eating much, being a pack a day smoker, lack of personal hygiene, and just not giving a fuck being the reason. 

Not to mention mental health issues and stress. Even before the second war, he had to keep up pretenses with those who were death eaters in the first war. One wrong step and they might do away with him before the dark lord had returned. Or tell the dark lord when he came back that he had betrayed them, so they wouldn't have to get their own hands dirty.

The rest of the order had assumed that during the time between the wars everything could go back to normal. And maybe that was for them, but not for him. His mind might not be able to be ripped through, but the same couldn't be said for someone like Lucius or Draco even. 

Severus said to Ron ”Mr. Weasley I taught you for a total of six years, you spent five of them trying to blow up my classroom. Guess who I am, I surely gave you enough information that even you can figure it out, who am. Or did you not even learn to listen at Hogwarts?”

Weasley hissed ”Snape! You're supposed to be dead!”

Severus said sharply, ”I am clearly not, as you can see.”

Ginny Weasley, now Potter stood next to her brother and said to Luna ”why did you bring Snape? And how in the world is he alive?”

Hermione got between her sister-in-law and husband shoving her way through their touching arms. She did not fake being shocked that he was here, which was good the woman had never been that good of a liar. She said ”Snape was turned by a dark creature at the battle, he didn't realize for the years it's been, that he was cleared or that the laws on dark creatures had changed. He's staying with Luna, and we should be grateful for that.” Her tone ever so slightly hinting that Luna was only here because of him. Their somewhat de-aged former nasty and cruel potion’s professor. 

Both redheads gaped like fish. Neither from his experience had been the sharpest tool in the shed. Harry walked over with a toddler on his hip. The little boy had wild black hair and sharp green eyes. Ginny hissed at her husband ”you knew he was coming and you didn't warn us?” 

Potter said ”we didn't know for sure if he was going to be able to come, and Hermione was the go-between. I haven't seen or spoken to Snape in years. He was worried with good reason, all things considered, the ministry might go after him. I confirmed if someone who had fought on our side ”reappeared” who had been cleared of all charges it would still hold, and the person would not have another trial, even if they are a dark creature .”

Both younger Weasley’s faces pinched. And their faces turned as red as their hair. Hermione said,” Ginny why don't you check on the roast, and Ron, Rose was asking for you.”

Ginny huffed and went to check on dinner. Ron gave all four of them a dirty look and went to check on his daughter. 

Harry adjusted his son on his hip. The little boy looked at Severus, with his green eyes he inherited from his grandmother. Merlin, he felt old, Lily if she was alive would be a grandmother to two boys. The little boy asked in the only way a child would without a care ”who is that with aunt Luna?” 

Harry said,” Al that's one of the men you're named after.”

Severus groaned so it was true, Potter had done it, he cursed a poor child with the name of Albus Severus Potter. Albus would lead him to respect, but Severus was going to get the child labeled by his classmates at Hogwarts a wannabe death eater. More so if he was in either Gryffindor or Slytherin. And Severus didn't know of one Potter by marriage or blood that wasn't one of those. Poor kid. Beyond that Severus was such a horrible name. And it meant stern, he didn't even understand why his mother had chosen it beyond pissing Tobias off. Which it did quite well.

The boy, Al it seemed, questioned ”that isn't Albus! Mummy showed me a photo of him and he was old! That man isn't!”

Harry shook his head and smiled at the boy. ”No Al that is Severus Snape, he's who your middle name comes from. Say hi to him.”

The little boy waved at him and said ”hi” and then shockingly reached out as if to ask Severus to hold him.

Snape was alarmed at such an action. Children did not like him, and he did not like children. He barely liked himself as a child. When they were small they were snot covered little brats who cried too much. As pre-teens, they asked stupid questions and tended to like disrespecting people for the sake of disrespecting people. And as teenagers, they did both and we're regularly trying to suck each other's faces off. Just as he told many people he thought to him I never wanted to be a teacher I don't like children, actually better yet I hate them. 

The little boy’s small nose pinched and reached out again. He looked like he was about ready to start screaming. 

”Fine” snarled not very harshly Severus ”you know you're a rather stubborn little boy, right?”

Instead of doing what Severus expected and possibly even hoped for, the child simply nodded. Slytherin, this child was going to end up in Slytherin he would wage anything on that bet. And that caused him to smile, James Potter and Sirius Black would be rolling in their graves. He would be nice to this child and help him grow into the opposite of his grandfather. He would bet anything this child and the Potters were going to barely understand each other as they grew. 

Al said to him ”I think you are nice, Mr. Sev.”

Luna smiled at him and said, ” Severus I think you have made a friend.”

Al giggled. 

They made their way into the living room and sat down. Severus set down Al and looked over the other people in the room. A five-year-old boy was the spitting image of James Charles Potter. A little girl with wild curly hair, the twin, which he was the reason the man was missing his ear, George he believed. Ron, Ginny, Hermione, Bill Weasley with the scars from a werewolf on his face. A blonde girl on his hip, and a pale orange-haired girl at his feet. His wife Fleur the quarter Veela was not far off from him. The Elder Weasley parents. And the other two unattached men Percy and Charlie Weasley.

They all were staring at him. He can't help it he wants to snarl at then ”stop acting like you have never seen me before, I taught potions to most of you!” He does not do so because of the fact it would upset Luna, these were her friends, and he was going to be kind to them. Even if he did not want to be. But the truth was this Christmas Eve was going to be a long night. He was here because of Luna, and how he felt about her. He knew he was going to have answer stupid questions. She was not like him, she could not and should not shut herself off from others.

He wasn’t going to allow someone’s death to taint her soul in the way it had done to his, at least he was going to try to stop that from happening, and if that meant tolerating dinners where he would not eat at the Potters he would.

*********************

Rumors had started about vampire attacks happening on muggles the auror department had to clean it up and make it look like natural causes, as much as you could when someone had been bled dry. That was why Draco, Harry, and Hermione stood outside after dark of Luna’s house. 

The two unspeakables didn't believe it was Snape. He far too crafty, too smart, to be so stupid. But, they had to be sure. And that is exactly what they were going to do. One of the two former Gryffindors were going to go through Snape’s mind, and Draco was going to use a better harder to fight truth potion of his own creation. Harry was pretty sure the man would want it to be Hermione, and he would just be here to watch the whole process, but he had explained in-depth to her what Snape’s mind was like. 

He is one of the few living people who had been inside of it, and one of the few people of a comparable level of power of Snape still alive. 

Luna answered the door in an ocean blue jumper and a green skirt with yellow tights. She still loved her odd clothing and had gone back to wearing it. Her eyes said much to the little distaste Luna was capable of, for once she was not pleased to see them. She said ”you know it wasn't him and yet you're still here, to question him and likely far worse. He controls his bloodlust now fully with the potion and did so quite well before I started making it for him. He's not a monster Harry. He's a person who was turned into a creature, he's no more dangerous than Remus was.”

Harry said softly ”Luna, Draco can attest that it's standard protocol. Most of the vampires we know are having to go into the ministry for this. The three of us insisted we could do this at home, that it is just a thing we have to check off. We all know this is not Snape’s work! He would far cleaner about it anyway. I named my son after him! Do you think I want to do this anymore than you want me to?”

Luna said,” it’s easier to name your son after a man who you think is dead and much different to have to deal with the fact that he's alive and a creature, a dark creature at that.”

Harry said ”Remus was a child! And he didn't feed on anyone!”

Luna said, ”and the only one Severus ever gets blood from, is me! And Harry it's not directly from the vein. If the potion didn't require a blood donation to work he wouldn't take it.”

Harry said, ”and I believe you Luna, and even him, but do not compare him to someone who was changed as a child!”

Luna said, ”he had no choice in the matter either! He did not consent to be changed.”

Draco said, ”Potter just leave it be, neither of you are going to change the other's mind. She and he care about each other a great deal. That's why he didn't run upon hearing we were doing this. Even with not being guilty you of all people know it's not fun to have your mind gone through. He loves her to allow us to do this. And she loves him to defend him against you her close friend.”

Hermione spoke up ” can either do this here or at the ministry. He's registered as a vampire, we have to do this. Please just let us in, so we can get this over with.”

Draco ”added Lovegood, I know Snape better than just about anyone who's still alive, he's my Godfather. I have said to everyone I can that doesn't look like his work. And it's flashy. I think it might be the person who changed him. Someone unregistered and dark. It reminds of something my father would do, or Bellatrix. Neither is possible. Father is human, I should know we live at the manor together, and she is clearly dead.”

Severus stepped into the doorway next to Luna, ”love let them in, they are just doing their job. And Draco the man your thinking of is Abraxas, your grandfather, the man who changed me that night. The man who found me in that shack.”

Draco and Harry both said, ” he’s dead!”

  
  


Hermione shook her head and said ”I checked, no body in the grave. I wanted to prove what Snape had told me was true, just in case it ever came up.”

Severus said, ”Thank you, and I am not shocked you didn't trust me. Now let’s get this over with, I for one don't like to draw things out.”

The odd trio followed the couple into their living room. Draco said once they had all sat down, ”you have to take this potion, so you're incapable of lying or hiding things.”

Severus said to Draco as he looked thoughtfully into his silver eyes ”you better be keeping this under lock and key. You better not give it to the auror department, the ministry or anyone else who would abuse such power.”

Draco smiled a dangerous smile ”would you expect any less out of me and my fellow unspeakables?”

Severus shook his head and reached out for the potion Draco was holding, he said as he did ”I would prefer if it was Mrs. Weasley who went through my mind. She is unlikely to get lost in it and start digging through information not related to the issue at hand.”

Hermione said ”that is the plan, Severus. I will get exactly what I need and nothing more. This is not something I want to do, but with what is going on the ministry is requiring it for all registered vampires.”

He nodded and drank the potion. He felt drunk and knew his tongue would be looser than usual. He could just tell that there was something different with this and the standard potion. 

Hermione asked him, ”Severus where were you born?”

.

He said without even realizing he was doing so at first ”Cokeworth, England.”

She asked,” Did you kill Albus Dumbledore?”

He said, ” yes on his orders to do so.”

She asked ” Who was your master?”

.

He said ” Albus Dumbledore.”

She asked,” who turned you?”

  
  


He answered, ” Abraxas Malfoy, the night of the battle.”

Hermione then said the spell and entered Severus’s mind, he was incapable of hiding anything from her. She saw flashes of his childhood, flashes of his kiss with Lily and their comment about how gross it was. She saw him as a teenager standing over and crying over his dead mother, she saw Lucius Malfoy coming with his father to ”rescue” him. She saw his marking, she saw his reaction to Lily’s death. She skipped to the battle, she got to see their reaction to him dying through his eyes. Had they really been so callous? She saw after dark after all had settled Abraxas, who looked like a slightly younger version of Lucius, and a slightly older version of Draco. 

She saw him change Severus. His body shaking as he changed and died. And then she saw what the man had done afterward. She desperately wanted to pull out of his mind. But, she would have to do this again, torture him and herself if she did. She went quickly through the years before he and Luna had met again. Living in abandoned buildings, hiding from people, woods, caves, always moving. Always hiding. He lived off of things a vampire could barely survive off of let alone live. Rats, rabbits, sometimes deer if he could find them. Once a dog which he swore never to do again once he came to and saw that she had a collar and tag. 

She went to the night of meeting Luna, through the time they had shared. That she had to go through every detail of that. She had to make sure no could claim she missed something. She saw them kissing, she Luna making the potion mixture, she saw how they each slowly let themselves fall in love. And she saw that Snape had never killed someone since he had been changed.

The only thing he had done that was questionable was kill someone’s dog and no one would blame someone for that, all things considered of his situation. 

Hermione pulls out of his mind, she's shaking, and without her noticing it she's reaching out for him, Draco. She knows she shouldn't but she can't help herself.

Harry asks her, ”so not him?”

Hermione nods and says ”not him, but now I know what the man we are looking for looks like.” 

Draco insists on staying to make sure the potion doesn't have any lasting effects. Hermione pulls the memory of Abraxas out of her mind and wishing she could do the same with the rest. And none of it even happened to her. It wasn't her mother staring up at her with dead black eyes, but it felt like it. It wasn't her who was raped, but she felt it. Without any walls on his mind, she felt every single of it. She felt as if she had been the person who killed that dog. And it made her sick to her stomach at it all. 

Harry left rather quickly once he had what he needed. He stopped in the doorway and turned to Snape ”this isn't personal, Severus, and I never believed you did it. By the way, Al asked when you're going to bring him that kid’s potion set and show him how to use it. Please be careful, he's only just turning four in a few months.”

Luna said for him ”in a few days unless you want us to hold off until his birthday.”

Harry says ”no he's far too excited for that. See you guys then.”

Once Harry was gone, Draco pulled Hermione into his arms. ” It's okay, love, I should have warned you about the effects on the person who is going through the others mind.”

Severus was right, Hermione's worry about him cheating on Luna, was because Draco her were cheating on their respective spouses. He says to them, ”you both should know lying only breeds more lies.”

They both turn to him and say ”we plan on telling them this year”.

She says, ”Draco can't bear the thought of losing Scorpius, and Astoria will need a system in place to take care of her. And Ron well he's not going to take kindly to it. Astoria has hinted that she knows. And I believe Ron does as well. He's been helping Lavender through her changes. He's waiting on an excuse to end it. He's family, mostly his mother isn't going to be pleased.”

Severus still under the effect the potion says ”whatever, but do not Ms. Granger put your own actions on myself. Do not excuse me of the same thing you are. I am not you. Just because I like both sexes equal mean I will cheat. And you don't have to be bisexual to cheat, you two are proof of that.”

Draco starts to say something and Severus just rests his head in his hands. He does not want to hear his Godson’s excuses. He's a Malfoy after all and he's quite good at making himself seem like the innocent party when he's just as guilty as everyone else.

  
  


*******************

Severus and Luna were walking to the twenty-four hour store close to their home. Both of their long hair had snowflakes in it. His arm was around her small waist. All that could be heard was the sound of their boots crunching under the snow. This was what heaven was. This was what happiness was. A quiet evening doing a simple chore. And then he smelled it a lavender line smell, something which turned his stomach. No, he thought it couldn't be! The man had left him alone for years. He was too busy killing Muggles and ripping their organs from their bodies. 

The man that had haunted Severus’s mind far more than the dark lord ever had, stepped out of an alley. Abraxas Lucius Malfoy was dressed it frayed green robes that had once been beautiful. His hair was longer than both Lucius and Draco’s. His eyes sharp and like quicksilver. He called out to Severus ” my Sevvy that's a pretty pet for us to share, and she even has the hair color. She's a Lovegood, isn't she? They are the only pureblood family with hair like the Malfoys and you surely wouldn't sully yourself with dirty muggle blood, now would you?”

Severus puts himself between the two of them and snarls, ”leave her out of this, Abraxas!” 

”Now, Sevvy you and her dead fiance dragged her into this already” hissed Abraxas. He grabs Severus’s face in his hands and whispers ”the ugliest of humans can make the prettiest of monsters, Severus. And your one of the prettiest I have ever seen. I wonder what Longbottom would have looked like. He too could have been such a beautiful thing. But, you see I don't take kindly to people killing my pets. 

Nagini was only on loan to the dark lord, and then he decided to damage her with his magic, and just when I found a way to undo it? The stupid child kills her. It took me quite some time to figure out a way to kill him in what was an accident, and not spill a drop of his blood traitor blood. I don't want that in my body now do I? Though I do wish I had used him, before I had killed him, but surely he wasn't going to be as good of a conquest as you were. The little virgin potion’s master. They say some of the darkest potions are made by virgins. I think all of your victims during both wars would agree with that statement. And you gave your little pet eternal life wasn't that kind of you? Your little mate. When you only drink the blood of your mate they get to live forever with you. Them giving you life gives them life.”

  
  


Luna let out a scream ”how dare you! HOW DARE YOU! You had no right to lay a finger on Neville or Severus. You're the real monster, and you're going to…”

She yanks Severus from his grasp and pours every bit of pain, hatred, and horror at what she had just heard into her spell, the blonde vampire goes up like a Tinderbox in magical fire. 

Luna grabs Severus and cries. Cries for Neville, whose long dead and buried. She cries for what the monster had done to Severus. She cries for the fact she just killed something, something she could not dare to call human. But most of all she cries of worry that Severus will not accept their bond, because she knows the monster’s words are true. She's the mate of Severus Tobias Snape, and she knew the risk when she gave him her blood of bonding them together. 

He whispers ”Luna, you did nothing wrong. You saved yourself, me, and all of those Muggles he was going to continue killing. You avenged Neville. You didn't know for sure we would be bonded by your actions, and if I have to live forever” he leans his head against her blonde hair icy from the snow ”I want it to be with you.”

And she whispered, ” me too.”

  
  


****************

It had been over a year since that cold winter night. Severus had outed himself as alive to the rest of the wizarding world. He did try and run a small mail-order potion’s business, but he only took a few orders at a time. One of the effects of sharing blood was that Luna had become a natural third shifter, as they sometimes joked with their friends.

His main goal had been to however piece himself mentally back together. He needed therapy, not just for what Abraxas had done, though that was the biggest reason he had started with it. His mother’s death, his time as a death eater, Regulus’s and Lily’s death. Merlin, his attachment issues. 

He was a mess, he would admit that to anyone who asked him. And yet he couldn't imagine the first time with a mind healer how far he was capable of going.

They were going to try tonight. Try to have sex. And for once he thought that he might actually be able to go through with it. 

Later on, as he was lying next to her. Her soft hair tickling him he thought to himself, this was worth waiting for. Not in a magical sense, not in a wait until marriage, but in the sense that this was the right time and with the right person. And it was the most wonderful thing he had ever done in his life.

She said to him ”I love you”.

And he said ”And I love you.”


End file.
